Visuospatial cognitive skills are increasingly recognized as critical in many areas of both formal and informal learning, but far less research has looked at their role in the workforce. We know, for example, that strong visuospatial skills in high school are predictive of STEM occupations, but we know less about how these skills are actually deployed in the workplace, and also the extent to which these skills might also be important in various non-STEM occupational pathways. Our review provides current context for these questions, including identifying occupations for which these research questions are actively being explored, as well as areas that urgently call for more research. We argue that systematic and rigorous cognitive research should be used to inform evidence-based best practices for addressing the unique workforce-related challenges of the 21st century.

This study investigated the relationship among home language use, parents beliefs about dual language development, and Spanish-speaking childrens vocabulary knowledge. Parents (n = 162) completed a questionnaire about their home language use and beliefs about dual language development, and elementary-age children (N = 190)-Kindergarten (M age = 5.71, SD = .56), second grade (M age = 7.52, SD = .31), and fourth grade (M age = 9.35, SD = .45)-completed conceptually-scored vocabulary assessments. Principal component analyses revealed that Spanish-speaking parents beliefs about dual language development are heterogeneous. Further, parents beliefs can be characterized differently according to their childrens English proficiency designations and grade levels. Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that the Bilingual Facility parental belief factor was associated with home language use practices, which in turn were associated with childrens vocabulary. However, this association only applied to limited English proficient students and their parents. These results underscore the importance of attending to Spanish-speaking parents beliefs, as they appear to relate to home language use practices and, importantly, they also relate to their childrens vocabulary achievement.

Vocabulary represents a key barrier to language and literacy development for many English learners. This study examined the relationship between Spanish-speaking English learners conceptually-scored Spanish-English vocabulary, academic English proficiency, and English reading comprehension. Second- and fourth-grade English learners (N = 62) completed standardized conceptually-scored vocabulary measures in the fall and state-administered standardized measures of academic English proficiency and English reading comprehension in the spring. Conceptually-scored vocabulary measures are designed to tap knowledge of the number of known concepts, regardless of the specific language (Spanish or English) used to label the concept. Regression analyses revealed that academic English proficiency and English reading comprehension were not predicted by the conceptually-scored measure of receptive vocabulary. However, both academic English proficiency and English reading comprehension were predicted by the conceptually-scored measure of expressive vocabulary. Importantly, the relationship between conceptually-scored expressive vocabulary and English reading comprehension remained after controlling for academic English proficiency. Results underscore the utility of measures that incorporate English learners first and second language skills in understanding the vocabulary knowledge English learners bring to English language and literacy learning tasks.